This is across the street in a garden I seldom walk past. One flower in a mess of puffy greenery. When I do pass here, it means avoiding Main Street. But every six or eight weeks I cross here for a haircut, my least favorite activity next to… Well, maybe my least favorite activity. I sort of cringe all the way to the barbershop and don’t pay much attention to the plants or flowers. I worry about the thirty minutes of inescapable barbershop conversation, and the walk uphill to the market and then, finally, home. I remember crying in the barber’s chair at age two and, I suppose, as silly as it sounds, I never recovered from that. I like feeling the stubbly ends after my hair is cut. It makes it almost worth the effort. But it seems like an enormous indignity. My dream is to have one of the servants — who obviously don’t exist — offer to trim my hair before I go out, and telling me happy stories that don’t involve alcohol or women with big tits. I feel her rubbing my shoulder now and then. I could live with that. I might even forget that first scarring haircut and feel safe and content on the walk downhill toward my inevitable shampoo. And I might remembr what I was going to say about this bright, beautiful flower in a mess of puffy greenery.